Research

Below is a list of research papers, reports and other publications from Ekklesia dating back to 2004. Click on the title for more information on each publication, and a link through to the item itself where available. You might also like to sign up for our award winning weekly research bulletin which will ensure you are kept up-to-date with the very latest research from Ekklesia.

To coincide with publication of the cross-party agreement negotiated by the Smith Commission, Ekklesia is publishing its own submission to the Commission, made alongside contributions by around 300 civic organisations and 1,700 individuals. We highlighted to Lord Smith the need for widespread public engagement on the Heads of Agreement, and certain core principles related to subsidiarity, the localisation of power and a democratic and socially just future which needed to be at the core of an agreement on new powers which represents a truly substantial shift in the current settlement.

The Department for Work and Pensions' Fit for Work Service (FFWS) programme is being rolled out across the country from November 2014. It is designed to intervene when a person has been off work, or is expected to be off work, for four weeks or more due to illness. GPs will be expected to refer patients to FFWS, which will then perform an assessment and draw up a plan to get them back to work as quickly as possible. If such a scheme was motivated by a genuine concern for a person’s wellbeing, implemented in an understanding and supportive manner, it could be beneficial. But the way it is being established, its underlying assumptions, contracting and economic model raises cause for concern. Ekklesia associate Bernadette Meaden offers an initial assessment and identifies key issues that need addressing.

Remembrance Day needs to be re-imagined in more hopeful, truthful, meaningful and inclusive ways for future generations, says this report commissioned by Ekklesia. That would include an honest if painful acknowledgement that some do “die in vain”, an end to “selective remembrance”, a positive stress on peacemaking, and making Armistice Day a public holiday. The report, originally published in 2009, followed the death of the 'last Tommy', Harry Patch from World War 1, who sadly described current patterns of Remembrance Day as “just show business”. Remembrance has been ‘cheapened’ by a failure to back up words with action, particularly when it comes to successive governments' inadequate care for war veterans, but also -- vitally -- the lack of serious resources put into peacebuilding. The report traces the development of Britain’s remembrance tradition and makes a series of proposals about how Remembrance Day might be positively developed. It also includes reflection on the meaning and practice of 'memory', not least from a Christian theological standpoint.

This detailed, evidenced and wide-ranging report on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), the Work Programme and recommendations for a new system of support (for people with disabilities and long-term health issues in and out of work) is the most important document of its kind published to date.

Beyond the Barriers is based on the responses to five separate consultations receiving over 1,200 responses from sick and disabled people going through the ESA system (Employment and Support Allowance, previously Incapacity Benefit or IB) and the Work Programme. It provides a comprehensive challenge to the present system, plus policy guidelines for alternatives.

Entirely researched, written and supported by disabled people, the report from the Spartacus Network - endorsed and backed by the think-tank Ekklesia and other NGOs and charities - draws on the widest evidence considered and presented to date. It is a major challenge to the UK government to reconsider and recast its policies and systems, and provides a clear platform for positive reform set out by those who live at the sharp end of the issues it unpacks in considerable detail and with great expertise.

This document is a response to the Public Engagement on Police Use of Water Cannon consultation. It sets out reasons for regarding the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) proposal to introduce the use of water cannon in London as a dangerous and retrograde step. It spells out the preferability of service, community and consent-based policing, and commends further active research into nonviolent police methods, resourced by the engagement of Christians and others.